[SPOILERS] Khan's Thread

[Mr. Cairo]

So, have to calm down a bit from that last report.

First of all, I won't have enough production in most of my cities to 1-turn most units. I'll get close, using overflow to get a few 1-turn Cavs out in a row, and Cannons will come easily enough. But for Infantry (and Tanks and Marines later down the road), only a few cities have the hammer capability to build them in decent numbers, although for now I'm just going to be building Cavs. I want a critical mass of them to keep me safe AND allow for some opportunism. 60-70 should do nicely. I have around 45 right now and I think I'll be able to build ~7 a turn (on average) starting in the next few turns. Still, a huge improvement on my pre GA and Factories production. 

Second of all, I did not attack OH this turn. I had previously considered the time for me to attack is when Auro is on the verge of taking Astley II, which he is:




But I realised that I really do need to wait until OH's on his last dying breaths before I attack him, taking the real prizes of Hazard, Spirits, and T-Hawk:



I'm currently getting a health resource (Cows) and a Happiness resource (Ivory) from OH, and losing access to those resources really would have an adverse effect. Not only that, but OH still has a significant force of Grens available in his cap, close to the cities I really care about. If I had attacked this turn, he could do all sorts of things to make it more difficult for me, and it's already hard enough thanks to Chichen Itza. As for Auro taking Astley II, well, all he has are Cavs (no siege), and it'll cost him a few to get through the units OH has there now. Besides, Sultan's culture will make that city useless to Auro, and permanently vulnerable if he decides to keep it. He'll probably end up burning it anyway.

Ideally for me, I'll be able to wait until after OH has lost his Chichen Itza city AND most of the units in his cap. Of course, he may choose to keep retreating up to my border, which would be annoying, but I'll have a lot more units by that time and I'll be more willing to lost some. Right now, if I end up losing too many units fighting OH, I'll just become vulnerable to Thoth and Auro.

Also, just to clarify from those screenshots, Thoth did take Molach last turn, but clearly didn't put a lot of units in it as OH was able to take it back and stick a CG3 Gren in it. He's going to make Thoth's conquest as slow as possible, which is fine with me. Auro has shifted a lot of his units towards positions capable of responding to another attack by me (but not preparing to attack me). If I do decide to mess with Auro again, I'll probably see if I can run through OH's territory and burn some more of the cities Auro has taken from him.

Back at home, being the last turn of the GA I swapped civics. I decided to make one more civic change than I had previously planned, swapping from Bureaucracy into Free Speech. I have enough towns (and the cheaper civic cost) for that to gain me quite a lot of cash, at the expense of some hammers in Khan. The extra culture is nice too in a few cities on the borders. Thanks to that I'll get enough cash for 5 turns of teching, which should be enough to get Electricity or Railways. At the moment, I'm leaning towards Electricity, because Auro is probably getting Railways and I want the ktb from that. Also, getting Electricity first is more efficient thanks to the extra commerce to windmills and watermills.

[Mr. Cairo]

Auro took and kept both Astley II and Gazglum. A bit surprising, but oh well. I also wonder if him and Thoth had somehow communicated that Auro would get Gazglum, or might this be a new source of tension between the two?



Techs:

Auro did get Railroads, and Al got Scientific Method. Not sure what he's going for, but it's probably Communism, he has a fair number of GP floating about, so he may be planning to get into an end-game set of civics.
I decided I will go for Electricity before Railroads. My plan is to build units while teching it, and for ~2 turns of saving cash afterwards. Then I'll go for railroads while building research everywhere, try and get it in 3 turns. In case Auro is planning on going for Combustion really fast to take control of that little lake I'm going to be massing Ironclads, which will get 2 promotions with a Drydock and the Pentagon.

I built 5 Cavs eot, with about 8 or so coming eot next turn, and probably around 6-8 every turn after that, helped by a couple or resource trades I worked out to get Corn and Sugar to improve the health of my cities.
Pentagon in 4 turns, Wall Street in my shrine city in 3, and Iron Works in my West Point city in 6 turns.

Graphs and Demos:

[Mr. Cairo]

Well, I did it, I invaded (what's left of) OH. It was sooner than I had hoped, but Thoth took the Chichen Itza city and is already moving onto Spirits. He's also got a settler and a GA heading in that direction, so I can't really afford to wait. I need to husband my units, so I didn't throw any Cavs into his defending Grens but moved up to commence the assault next turn. Hwachas to knock out the defenses in Spirits and Airships to hurt the top defenders in Hazard. Also, I want to see what OH does with his troops in the capital, I'm hoping he just sits still.
I forgot to take any screenshots, sorry.

Al got Liberalism, so I'm quite confident that he is going for Communism.

I'm really hoping that Thoth decides that now is not the time to fight, and to just let me have those OH cities. But sitting around a doing nothing is a mistake as well. I can't let Auro and Thoth just split OH between them then peacefully leverage their land advantages into defeating me.

[Mr. Cairo]

This turn presented a bit of a conundrum to me, as Thoth maneuvered in a way I didn't really expect.

For context, here's a screenshot from a few turns ago of the area I had hoped to take from OH:

Last turn I moved units into position next to Hazard and Spirits, after Steel had been taken by Thoth. OH moved most units out of those cities and into T-Hawk, while Thoth moved a force of Cavs and Cuirs onto the hill where that Jannisary is in the above screenshot. (I captured Hazard without losses). Thoth's force that captured Steel was remained on the hill 1E of the city. Thoth had also culture bombed Steel, taking it out of resistance and dumping culture onto a bunch of tiles soon the be lost to OH. Thoth was obviously telling me he didn't want me to have Spirits. So after some deliberation I decided the safest option was to raze the city. I could pull my own stack into a similar position, ready to hit the city if Thoth took it, but that just seems like a risky game to play. However, after I did raze the city OH's culture fell in a way that gave me a serious opportunity against Thoth:

I can use my stack to basically wipe out Thoth's forces by Steel. Of course, he still has a lot of troops by Molach. Also worth considering is this collection of galleys in his city of Crazy Train:


Our other land borders weren't really places either of us could or were prepared to fight over, so most of the fighting would have been in OH-land. However, in the end I decided not to go for it, not because I don't think I can beat Thoth, in fact I'm pretty sure I can, especially with an effective first strike. HOWEVER, I can't fight Thoth and Auroarcher, and you can be sure that if Thoth and I get into a hot war, Auro will come-a-knocking. Not only that, but with railroads going up in Auro's land I won't have much warning if he does decide to attack me.

So, I pulled my units back, with my cavs in position to hit the city of T-Hawk AND potentially get into a position to raze OH's cap if the opportunity arises.

I'm still building cavs at a quick rate, while Al has taken over the tops in power spot:

Whether he plans to do anything with that power is an open question...

So, with a war with Thoth (at least one I start) not on the table, I still need to do something if I want a chance of winning this game. I'm too far behind in the city count. Amusingly enough, my best target for expansion is still Auroarcher, but in a different manner than I had planned when i first took over.

I have two main avenues of attack, the first is against Auro's ex-OH cities:

With railways, all this should be possible, although there's no guarantee that little force of cannons will still be kept there when I attack, in which case I'd just keep the cavs on the desert tile to attack Muffin the next turn. Right now all Auro has in those cities is mostly Cavs, not the best defenders of course, but even if he puts Rifles in there I can use Infantry on railways. Afterwards, I can launch the main offensive aimed at actually keeping land from this direction.

The other is a re-hash of the naval attack from earlier:

So the attack on his cap will need a lot of units, something like ~30 Cavs and G2 Infantry. Ignore the crossed out stuff, that was from an earlier, not properly thought out plan.

My one point of weakness is here:

With railroads, he could quite easily capture/burn First Sword, so I'll probably leave only a token defense in place, while keeping a large force of cavs and collateral in place to attack and hopefully kill any stack that does try and attack through here. Eventually, I can launch an offensive of my own through here, but only once I have massive superiority. Of course, at the same time I'll need to keep a forces strong enough at home to defend against a possible Thoth war. That's a lot of units, so probably no wealth/research builds for a while. It'll slow down my research, but I'm going to need a lot of the units I can produce now, instead of rushing after units I'll be able to make later, like Tanks. Of course, circumstances change, so who knows what my plans'll be in a few turns.

Tech-wise, Auro got Sci Method this turn. Still looks like he's going for Combustion, so hopefully I can still even launch my planned naval attack by the time I'm ready. 

Heck, I may end up decided to go back to my original plan of getting to Tanks as fast as possible and just delay my attack until then. IDK. Circumstances dictate so much that it's hard to really make these kind of long-term plans.

[Mr. Cairo]

Thoth wasn't too impressed with my razing of that city last turn...

    I guess he's upset that OH didn't leave many defenders there for me to fight against there? Then again, I can't imagine many people would do different to OH in this situation. Hurt most the ones who most hurt you seems to be a common and fairly accepted philosophy for players on their way out.

Other than that I think he's just prepping for the attack on OH's capital.

Other news in the area:

Don't worry Auro, the revolters are a friendly lot.

I think the city that OH razed was here:

(the ruins 1S of a mountain) I'm pretty sure that OH must have used a commando HA, he a HA nearby last turn with C2 and promotions available, and that's the only way I can see for OH to have reached that city.

Other than that, not much to report. I'm up to 64 Cavs from ~50 3 turns ago. Pentagon and Electricity finished at eot. So starting next turn I'm going to be adding Infantry into the mix, need the 5 xp for Guerrilla 2. Also Auro build an Ironclad? Not sure about that but OK. Thoth got Steam Power last turn and Alhazard got Communism. I can't remember if anything was different tech-wise for Auro.

[Mr. Cairo]

I took that city of OH's (T-Hawk). All he has left is his capital. I had wanted to wait a bit, but it looked as though Thoth/Auro would be able to take/raze it. Also, a settler of Thoth's is on the way to the site of Spirits, so I got a a settler of my own this turn and may settle the spot instead. Although Thoth may not take kindly to that, so I may change my mind. Most of Thoth's troops are positioned to attack OH's capital. I'm going to move some Cavs of my own into a position to potentially raze the city if I get an opportunity.

At home, I figured out a tech plan. At 100% science and no research builds I can get Railways in 4 turns, needing about 1500 gold. Turning every city to Research cuts that to two turns, but I don't want to lose more than a single turn of unit building, so my plan is to spend two turns on cash, then swap to Railways, and with two turns left max out the science to get it in one turn. My other option was to max out with wealth builds this turn to get up to that 1500 gold needed, but I prefer the former option. It disguises the actual time it'll take me to get the tech, and it'll allow me to finish Ironworks beforehand.

Techs:

The only new thing is Thoth getting Steam Power. Still don't know what he plans to do with all that cash, but I think he's planning on getting a rush-buy economy. In which case getting the Kremlin is good just to deny it to Thoth.

[Mr. Cairo]

And that's that for OH, apparently. I wonder what Thoth has left, I put a bunch of cavs in position this turn, ideally in case I could raze the city while it was still OH's, but maybe I can hurt Thoth? Probably not, I'd rather keep preparing for the attack on Auro.

As for OH, well, I came in even later than you did, albeit in very different conditions, so I can't say much about your game. I hope I didn't confound you too much with my possibly questionable decision-making.

[Old Harry]

Hey, nice team work against Auro! I didn't have much hope of retaking Thought, so razing it was great.

Re: the iron trade - I wasn't after help, just wanted to be able to keep building pikes. But if you had cleared out Thoth's other units when his Cavs were too injured then I'd have been able to kill some for you. As it was I had to retreat instead .

Good luck with the rest of the game!

[Mr. Cairo]

Hey, nice team work against Auro! I didn't have much hope of retaking Thought, so razing it was great.

Re: the iron trade - I wasn't after help, just wanted to be able to keep building pikes. But if you had cleared out Thoth's other units when his Cavs were too injured then I'd have been able to kill some for you. As it was I had to retreat instead .

Good luck with the rest of the game!

While in retrospect, it is obvious that you would have finished the job if able if I had hit Thoth's stack, at the time I had to assume the worst, which was Thoth offering you a peace treaty the focusing all his efforts against me. Basically I had to make decisions based on their own virtues, not what you or anyone else might do. Perhaps that's too cautious of an approach, I don't know.
Also, it literally never occurred to me that you'd want to build Pikes.

On to the turn, I missed reporting last turn due to computer troubles that necessitated a complete re-install of Windows, so I lost (among other things  ) the screenshots from that turn, and it's been too long for me to remember, so let's just continue on with the current turn.

There's really only one thing to talk about and that's Thoth's approaching victory:


He's still a ways off from Cultural victory, but it's still closer than any victory I can achieve. Last turn I had a plan for this, involving a cavalry promoted to Commando and Morale that could get to his capital from well within my own territory, which has been defended by a single warrior for some time. Unfortunately, he's anticipated me:

Also visible there is Sent To Destroy, one of his other major cultural cities (basically the cities with 80% defenses are the ones to pay attention to).

So now that those cities are out-of-reach, I'll need a new plan:

A massive attack of Cavs, Tanks, and G2 Infantry from Alhazard's territory should be able to break through and kill these two cities quick enough. I'll wait for Bombers too if I have time.
The other city I'll want to kill is Crazy Train:

That I'll have to do from the sea.

So my plan now has shifted away from Auro and towards Thoth. If I can do enough damage to Thoth on the first couple turns of a war, negating the threat of cultural victory, and razing enough cities to cripple him, I could get a concession. But that still leaves Auro...

In the mean-time, I signed a defensive pact with Alhazard, just to keep Thoth and Auro from attacking me (I hope) until I'm ready.

Also, here's techs:

Auro got Physics and couple of turns ago, but I don't see any Airships yet. Thoth's cash is still just insane. Also, I have come to realise that a lot of Thoth's insane GNP is coming from culture. A city he recently planted over the ruins of an OH city got to 40% defenses in two turns. Which is crazy fast. I think the sudden spike occurred when he swapped into Free Speech and his cultural output doubled.

[Mr. Cairo]

This report covers two turns, as not much has really been happening on the map.

First, as planned, with 2 turns left on Railroad, I turned on science in all my cities to finish it in one turn. Here are the demos from that turn:



This turn's demos:

Oh look, Thoth turned on science... Not fun to see, especially since I lost tech visibility on him this turn. I'm thinking he's getting Railroad?
Here's the graph:

Here's tech from the last two turns:




No-one's techs changed (other than me) but both Thoth and Auro are spending money, Thoth losing over 600 gold in a turn. My own expenses are rising as my army increases. I'm losing more money at 100% science than I'm making at 0%, for the first time in a while. I've got a couple of high commerce cities without markets/groceries/banks. So that'll go some way to rectifying that, but really I can't do much about it as I continue to build a lot of units.


Finally, here's the victory screen from the last two turns:




His capital is increasing its culture at ~400/turn. The other two cities at ~200/turn. A lot to be sure, but I don't think I need to rush. Ideally I'd wait till I get tanks and possibly even bombers before I attack him.

Also, must remember to take a screenshot of the culture graphs next turn.